And when the first aircraft drops out of the sky like a brick with its tanks empty, the first words out of the Bush apparatchiks at the FAA will be "No one could have foreseen ..."
exactly.
"No one could have forseen..." followed a few days later (when the massive fuckups are public) by "Mistakes were made..."
You see what happens when you have a faith based government whose members say that they have THE MATH.
Wanderer: Fuel exhaustion accidents in modern commercial jets over land do not generally end in loss of life. There have been a few, usually but not always caused by some kind of mechanical fault, and they've typically ended with a deadstick landing at the nearest airport (or, in the case of the Gimli Glider, drag strip). Certainly doesn't make it ok.
And that NASA program referred to is mostly intended to protect pilots who report safety faults from FAA license action. And if I was a commercial pilot flying under those kind of orders, I'd report on every damn flight to protect my license.
Right. Last spring I was waiting for my flight at La Guardia, and it didn't seem to be preparting for boarding or anything like that at boarding time, and I'll spare you the blow-by-blow of the series of non- and lying announcements of minor delays. Turned out in the end, there was a slight crowding that morning -- so many planes! -- who could have predicted? -- leading to brief delays in landing. Not an hour or anything.
So, the plane hadn't had enough fuel to wait, so it flew over and landed at JFK! Took on fuel, waited in line for takeoff, and came over to LaGuardia. Lost a couple of hours doing this, of course, but such fun, I'm sure! Why don't they sell tickets on their jet flights across Long Island?
I suppose it had used up all its reserve fuel fighting through those storms that day.
There weren't any storms that day.
Clearly, the Bright Guys had calculated fuel to the last drop. Saved them lotsa money. You know, like an extra unplanned landing fee at JFK, the massive amount of fuel wasted lifting that great pig off the ground an extra time, not to mention an extra landing...
Sadly, the money lost to the stockholders doesn't really compensate the pawns on the ground. But one can hope that some Bright Guy lost his job.
Commenting by HaloScan
